


closing speed

by lady_peony



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, Pining, Slice of Life, Unresolved Romantic Tension, dubious references to ethical thought experiments, there's no thesis here just feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25873660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony
Summary: Akira is a virtue that Goro can ill afford.(Or: envy, debts, longing, and trains).
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 19
Kudos: 159





	closing speed

**Author's Note:**

> no specific warnings as such other than that akechi's thoughts veer into sort of dark places sometimes, and if you squint, there are vague spoilers for persona 5 royal in one scene

i.  
  
_There is a trolley. There are two tracks._

_One track has nine people tied to it. None of them whose names or faces you know._

_The other track only holds one. No one that you know, no one truly important. A nobody._

_The trolley is headed towards the track with nine people._

_But in your hand is a switch that can divert the trolley to the next track. Do you pull the switch?_

_Do you pull the switch?  
  
_— _  
  
_Goro lifts his cup. The first sip of coffee warms him as it glides past his tongue and down his throat.

His other hand thumbs through the messages on his phone. 

Done, done, unimportant. Required but tedious, done, done, and spam. Nothing that requires his immediate attention, which was a rarity. 

Reading it is, then.

Something mindless drifts from the TV in the background, floating scatters of audience laughter and strains of some repetitive, vaguely-familiar pop song. Somewhere in the kitchen behind the bar under Goro's elbows, Sakura-san is shifting around equipment, cabinets closing and opening with faint thuds between soft clinks of porcelain and metal.

A shadow shifts at the door. Goro turns.

Kurusu Akira slips in through the entrance, struggling slightly at the last few steps as Leblanc's door swings back, almost colliding with his face.

The bells at the door jangle, then stop. Jangles again more softly as Akira removes his foot from the corner of the door with a sigh. 

The black cat—Morgana, wasn't it?—trots in right behind Akira's heels as always. 

"Kurusu-kun? Looks like you had a busy day," Goro says, closing his book.

"Akechi?" 

Well, that's what Goro assumes he hears Akira say. The Shujin school bag slung over Akira's right shoulder, the two bags cradled in his left elbow, and the large box Akira is staggering under all stack up to tower over Akira's face, blocking most of him from view. 

Akira drops his burdens on top of the nearest empty booth, and raises a hand to his neck as he rotates it once. "Pretty busy I guess. Had a study session after school today, and Ann took us on a shopping break right after."

"I'll have to acknowledge your diligence then. 'The difference between the wise and the unwise is nothing but the difference between the learned and the unlearned' isn't it?"

"My diligence?" Akira says, blinking once, twice, the corner of his lips twitching up as he flicks his eyes towards Goro. "A high compliment, coming from the boy reading Sartre."

Goro opens his mouth to respond, when Sakura-san shuffles in, a small burlap bag tucked under one elbow. 

"Hey kid," Sakura-san says, leaning one elbow against the kitchen's entryway. "I don't mind the cat being downstairs, but you gotta get your stuff off the tables and upstairs."

Akira nods, and with a quick scooping motion, he juggles his schoolbag, bags, and his large box up the stairs.

Goro flips through another page of Sartre. 

_Perhaps it is impossible to understand one's own face. People who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends._

_I have no friends._

A creaking of a stool and a faint thump on the counter. Goro shifts his head.

Akira's there, his own book in hand. _Social Thought_ shows in neat stamped letters on the cover, in front of Akira's intent stare. 

Sakura-san passes by them once, one eyebrow raised in Akira's direction; Akira nods as a response to some silent query. Sakura-san shrugs then, and with a single tug at his hat, heads out of Leblanc's door without another word.

No bright spotlights, beeping camera recorders, or ingratiatingly cheerful questions from TV hosts to be found here. Just the warm cast of overhanging lamps, murmurs of passing pedestrians beyond the walls, and the shifting sound of Akira's elbow on the counter as he turns a page, a faint lilting hum from between his lips as he reads. 

The next time Goro lifts his cup, he tastes nothing but air. 

"Ah. Perhaps it's time for me to go."

"You haven't eaten anything yet."  
  
Is that—concern in Akira's voice?

"What?" 

"Wait." Akira has stood from his seat, his book left facedown on the counter. A hand lowers, touches lightly on Goro's shoulder. "Wait just for a bit. Please."

Goro doesn't know why, but he stays seated where he is.

Akira strides to stand in front of the fridge behind the bar. His hand tugs open the door—he stares inside and bites his lip. "No curry ingredients..."   
  
"You needn't put yourself to any trouble Kurusu, I'll just—"

Akira shakes his head, crouches down to squint into the interior of a lower level in the fridge. Goro sees him extend his arm, watches him tilt his head and smile as his hand withdraws something from one of its shelves.

"Here. It's not much but—it's a katsu sando." 

Goro isn't sure what to say. "And you think I need this because—"

"I'm guessing you only had that one cup of coffee over the last two hours. It's not just detectives who are allowed to be observant, aren't they?" 

"What do I owe you?" Goro asks.

"Nothing," Akira says, blinks, his gaze guileless and just a touch surprised behind his lenses.

He can't shove the sandwich into his briefcase so he holds it in a paper bag that Akira had wrapped it in while he stands on the train pulling away from the station. 

Akira's expression, and that easy way he had handed the food to Goro—

Goro feels a pang of—something, something turning in his chest, twisting in his stomach. 

From hunger, he assumes. Of course. 

Only hunger, and nothing else.   
  


* * *

  
ii.

_There is a trolley. There are two tracks._

_One track has a hundred people tied to it. None of them whose names or faces you know._

_The trolley is headed towards the track of a hundred._

_The other holds just one.  
  
Someone known to you. Someone you love._

_Do you pull the switch?_

_Is this a hard choice? Do you even have a choice?_

—  
  
What Goro knows of Mementos is this—gloom and shadows, heaving slashes of red and black, dizzying and claustrophobic to the eye. Tangled whispers overlapping like brambles, the sounds bleeding into each other like one long, unending groan of pain. 

When Goro has gone into Mementos before, he has always gone with a single-minded purpose. Find the target. Search and destroy.

With Akira, though—with Joker, the journey underground turns into a more leisurely affair. 

It's no pleasure cruise but even so—

Teammates in the rear-guard, to swap in and out when one of them flags.

The knowledge that even if they did hear the menacing rattle of chains, they had others to cover their backs as they made their escape.

Joker next to him, driving Mona in a catbus form, speeding through the winding tunnels with relative ease.

And when one of them happens to receive a battle wound—

"You're sure you can continue?" Joker's voice is level, implacable as always, though there's something in his eyes behind his mask that looks too distressingly close to worry for Goro's taste.

"Of course I can," he says. "I promised not to hold you all back, didn't I?"

"That last attack—"

"Barely even drew any blood. Can we go, Leader?" Goro makes to stand, though his muscles were loath to do so. 

The Phantom Thieves themselves are scattered around the station. Queen and Skull are discussing something in quiet (relatively quiet) tones while looking at Queen's motorcycle Persona. Fox and Panther are examining the starry stamp stand with interest. Oracle and Noir are sitting cross-legged by Mona, looking at one of the treasures Joker had unlocked from an earlier chest. 

Only Crow and Joker are in the bus stop, the high walls around the bench Goro is sitting on giving them some semblance of privacy.

"Well?" Goro asks, tapping gloved fingers against the crook of his elbow. "Didn't you say there were still a few more areas on this floor for us to cover?"

"I'm aware," Joker says. "Look. Take this, and we'll go."

Something is shoved into his hand. 

An Alert Capsule.

Goro opens his mouth, but stops when Joker steps in closer, bends down close to Goro's ear.

"You can fight me on this if you want," Joker says, breath warm, his presence very very palpable as his shoulder almost touches Goro's collarbone. From the side, his gaze is steely and unyielding, unmoving from Goro's face. "But I'd rather you didn't. It doesn't help us at all to have a teammate suffer needlessly."

Joker pulls away. 

Goro blinks. There's the smell of leather and another deeper layer beneath that—clean salt and the sky before a rainstorm—all lingering in the air from where Joker had stood.

"Or—" Joker is smirking now, his face and voice still Akira's but more striking, more tantalizing, stirring something up beneath Goro's skin "—would you rather I feed it to you?"

"I'm not an invalid," Goro shoots back, and tosses the Alert Capsule into his mouth.

Damn it. He does feel better, the dizziness he felt from being knocked down clearing away from his head, the stiffness in his muscles lightening.

"Say, Joker," Goro starts.

"Hm?"

"These missions you run into in Mementos. Surely you know that it's impossible for the Phantom Thieves to answer every request, do you not?"

"Yeah. We know."

"If such is the case," Goro presses his lips together, thinking of the most delicate way to phrase it, "why bother to carry out these requests at all? You know the Thieves will never be publicly thanked for it. And what of those whose requests never get answered? Isn't it a double-edged sword, for some to see their wishes granted and others to never see theirs fulfilled?"

Joker leans back, one shoulder against a glass wall. His glance is sharp-eyed, careful. He exhales—Goro watches a faint white puff of breath curl into the air. The weather in Mementos always fluctuates, odd and unpredictable—sometimes hot and muggy, sometimes bitingly cold.

"You're right though. We can't help everyone in Tokyo even if we want to," Joker says. "But the ones who send requests to us—they're hurt, or know someone is being hurt, and don't have anywhere to turn to. Others might see what we do as interfering but—" Joker turns his wrists, showing the scarlet palms of his gloves "—I'm not going to say that we do doesn't matter if it helps someone. Even if it's just a handful of people, or ten, or even one."

"Interesting. Are you shaping your argument with roots in utilitarianism, then?" Goro says. "Changing the hearts of petty villains for the greater good? For the greatest measure of people's happiness, however it would be counted?"

"I wouldn't say the targets we took down were petty—"

"Hey Leader!"  
  
The sound of a small body thudding against glass—Joker turns from where he had been standing, knees almost knocking into Goro's. 

It's Mona, who whacks his paw into the glass wall again when he catches Joker's eye. "Leader! It's about time to move on!"

"All right." Joker rolls his shoulders, flicks his glance to Goro. "The others are waiting for us. Let's go."

At some time in the next week before they head into the subways of Mementos, Joker pulls Goro aside for a moment at the entrance. 

"Take this," Joker says, and shoves a bag into Goro's hand. 

Goro opens it.

It's lighter and stronger than the protection Goro is currently wearing with his Robin Hood outfit. A Brave Waistcoat, Joker tells him.

"Are you certai—"

"I have my own set for added protection," Joker says simply. "I got this one for you."

"You have my thanks." What else can Goro say?

More debt. One that again, tips the scales to Akira's side, debt that Akira would never think of calling to collect from Goro.

_Fool me once, fool me twice._

Goro lets his fingers clench into the folds of the protector before he shakes it out and dons it, his cognition pulling smooth white fabric and golden trimmings over it into one cohesive whole. 

A prince or a thief or a hero or a knave—how should he know how his heart is weighed on the scales of truth?  
  


* * *

  
iii.

_Again._

_One trolley._

_Two tracks. One snaking to the right, the other snaking to the left._

_One of them has you bound, hand to foot to spine. Chained. Captive.  
  
Cold iron at the base of your neck, cold iron pressing in at your back._

_The other track has the one you love._

_Friend or foe, friend or rival—the one closest to your heart. The one who's come the closest, perhaps, to capturing your own. Yours to kill or yours to keep—pick your poison._

_There's no difference—either way will only lead to your ruin._

_The switch is in your hand._

_Choose._

**_Choose._ **

—

"This really isn't necessary, you know."

"Shush," Akira answers, eyes sweeping through the glass pane with a singular concentration, as if he was judging the distance of a jump from a wall to ledge in a Palace. 

Goro doesn't quite remember how they had ended up in Akiba today, of all places—he had run into Akira at a train station, hadn't he? 

A conversation had followed, went from one thing to another, and before he had known it, he had somehow agreed to spend his afternoon with Akira at the arcade.

This wasn't their first visit there—but when they had stepped through the door, Goro couldn't help but be slightly surprised by the crowds inside, the chatter loud as a flock of sparrows.

He spots a loose circle of teens in casual dress in one corner, coins and sticks of gum exchanging between their hands; a gaggle of elementary-aged kids cheer around the machines in another.

Goro and Akira had both shot each other a look—silent agreement that neither of them were quite mean enough to elbow away a bunch of ten-year-olds just for a round of Gun About.

The standing space around the crane machines was a little more open, and Goro and Akira had found themselves both drifting there. 

"Don't be silly Jun-kun," a fashionably dressed girl had said, moving away from the crane machines with one arm twined around a taller boy. "Why would I want a doll with a scary face like that? You could get me something cuter instead~."

"Scary?" Goro had heard Akira murmur.

Akira had bent down a little, to peer at the dolls in the machine.

"Looks like we won't get to play anything here today—" Goro had begun, ready to suggest an alternate location.

"Just five minutes. This won't take long." Akira had shifted his schoolbag off his shoulder, already moved to place it onto the floor. 

"Why?" 

"Wouldn't want to waste the train fare we used to get here," Akira says, and smiles as he rotates the wrist of his right hand.

Fine. Five minutes, Akira had said. 

So Goro waits as the UFO Catcher machine's music starts up.

Watches Akira's hand on the joystick, his motions smooth and certain as the claw whirs through the machine. Lowers onto its target.

Akira tugs the toy out of the machine, giving it a strong second pull when its head seems to have gotten caught on the flap of the opening.

Goro blinks when Akira turns over the toy to see the sly grin of a Black Jack Frost, its plush body topped with a recognizable purple hat. Akira cocks his head to the side. "Should I give this to you? As a souvenir from our outing today?"

"How old do you think I am?" Goro asks dryly.

Some of the triumph on Akira's face bleeds away, and Goro feels an odd twist in his throat. A faint wish to apologize.

"Well." Akira raises a hand to the back of his neck, tugging at one of the curls there. "I already have this one, and the three other dolls in the series. Besides—I think this one's pretty cute too, and not scary, don't you think?

"Though if you don't want it—" Akira says, the gaze behind his glasses uncertain.

"No," Goro says. He reaches over, plucks the doll from Akira's clutches. "I'm keeping it. I was too careless with my words earlier."

Goro squeezes it once. The Black Jack Frost continues to smirk at him.

"That's good," Akira says, his shoulders relaxing. "I was going to say that I could give Morgana a new chew toy to play with but. It'll have a better place with you."  
  
The Black Jack Frost looks ridiculous later, sitting on his desk on top of a stack of books.

A gift. From Akira.

Frivolous. Unneeded.

Food and drink made sense—it was logical for the Leader of the Phantom Thieves to look after the well-being of his teammates after all. The armor for Mementos too. 

This one though—just a gift, another part of him says. A gift given without cause, a gift given without a demand for recompense.

The kindness of it stings. 

The gladness that had lit up Akira's eyes, the ease that slid into his smile when Goro accepted it from his hands—

He wants to throw it down, grind it beneath his heel like it was nothing more than a brittle stick of chalk, burn it into a smear of ash.

Goro can't remember keeping many toys as a child—perhaps when he had been very very young, when his mother had still smiled without despair clawing in at the edges—

He has nothing left to hold onto now. 

Goro reaches up to tear off a page of the calendar pinned to wall above his desk. The motion of his hand brushes against the Black Jack Frost. It tips, unsteady, until Goro's fingertips pull it up by the corner of its hat before it falls.

How dare he—how _dare_ Akira do this—draw Goro in closer, the mesmerizing gravitational pull between them, Akira with his fearless smile, his rankling saintlike kindness, his mouth and his manners charming and quick enough to catch up with Goro, to keep pace with him—

It's a pity. A shame. 

Before the month is out, it'll be as if Kurusu Akira had never existed at all.

So much for his compassion. So much for his boundless heart.

So unlike your own heart, bound by nature and nurture to the course you have set upon—you cannot break from it, you do not dare swerve from the path. 

If you do, you'll drown. As easily as a rat swallowed by waves, sinking beneath the surface of the sea.  
  


* * *

  
iv.  
  
_Let's try something else._

_There are two trains._

_Both trains are on the same track at 100 km apart at opposite ends, heading towards each other._

_If Train A is traveling from the station at 75 kilometers per hour at 11:00 am and Train B is leaving their station at 90 kilometers per hour at 11:20 am, at what time will they collide?_

—

  
So. The bird had flown the coop. 

Akira had given him the slip—glided through the bars closing in on him in a manner befitting his Persona's namesake.

Part of Goro had burned with rage—how long had Akira known, how long had Akira been laughing at him, at his farce of a betrayal—the Thieves leading him on a merry hunt, their feints and circles and backtracking, to throw him off their scent?

Another part, a quieter part, had been glad—he had been right—Akira was not a rival who would disappoint him.

He thought it would be the end of it, that winter, when he meant to set their accounts straight—when he had turned himself in for Akira's sake.

And fate—because when has fate ever looked kindly on Goro?—had other plans.

"Hey, Goro." Akira's voice, the sound of it soft and familiar to his ears. "We should go to the jazz club tonight."

"Whatever for?"

An exhale from the other end. Goro can imagine Akira raising a shoulder in a shrug before he remembers that they're speaking by phone. "I dunno. The singer is scheduled to perform tonight I hear."

"And you would enjoy hearing such a performance? In this fake reality?"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. Would you consider listening to music from a record player as fake music, even if it isn't a live performance?" 

Goro pauses. "And if the music today at Jazz Jin is of a mediocre quality? What would I gain from such an outing?"

"The pleasure of my company, of course." Akira's reply is swift, the syllables light and lilting. Then—another exhale. This time, it sounds a little strained, a little weary. "But if you're tired—I can go alone to Kichijoji. I wouldn't mind." 

Goro grips his phone a little tighter. The image sits uneasily in his mind—Akira, alone at the table, a drink before him. No one with him, not even that cat who usually followed him with all the loyalty of a nursery-tale lamb.

A single bird, perched on a branch all alone—one for sorrow.

"No," Goro says. "I'll go."

The sight of the outside of Jazz Jin is warm, comforting in the dark of night. Akira smiles near the entrance—a small smile—when he sees Goro.

"If we remember something," Akira says, his fingers spinning the straw in a slow circle in his glass, "then surely that means it would exist?"

"Confirmation bias exists," Goro says. "As does selective recall. The suggestibility of the human mind, stress and other numerous unseen factors would all exert an influence on your store of memories." 

"I suppose," Akira says. "Are you arguing for placing some sort of trust in other people's memories and not just your own to find truth? That things only exist when they're perceived by others besides yourself?"

They get so caught up in this vein of argument that it isn't until the both of them are already on the train that Akira notices he had left his blue scarf inside the club.

_Foolish of him._

It had been snowing softly before they had stepped into the station—not too out of the ordinary for January in Tokyo. But something about this specific snowfall, the way it embellishes the whole cityscape as if draping it in a soft bokeh filter sets his teeth on edge.

At least the interior of the train looks the same as the trains always did in reality. 

Emptier maybe, with more open seats. 

Goro is sitting at the seat closest to the door. Akira had folded himself into the seat right next to him.

The faint evening light through the window slants across Akira's hair, Akira's eyes. From the side, Goro can observe a light pink flush over the curve of Akira's cheekbones. The pale sliver of his exposed throat, visible against the edge of his turtleneck. 

Akira's throat moves. He's humming something, almost thoughtlessly—snatches of what sounds like the song they had listened to at Jazz Jin, the notes low and melodic.

Goro's glance moves up.

A couple flecks of frost still cling to Akira, collected from their brief walk outside. A few nestle in the dark of his curls. 

And another one, there, at the corner of his lips.

Goro's fingers curl into his palms. He shoves his gloved hands deeper into his coat pockets, instead of—instead of—

"What is it?" Akira's gaze meets Goro's. His glasses are off his face and clasped between his fingertips, one of the lenses pressing lightly to the gray sleeve of his coat.

Akira's eyes are gray. But never dull, never clouded. They shine instead, shifting from silver bright to iron dark—metal strong enough to ward off the darkness, to slay foul monsters, stalking in from the shadowy edges of some dark wood.

Goro has seen them alight with a canny consideration, flashing with sharp command, or narrowed with cold fury, like slow-burning coals before they burst into flames.

And sometimes. 

Sometimes.

Akira looks at him and—

Sharply attentive, but with an absorbing gentleness beneath it—a pool of water in some forest glade, just touched with the first light of dawn. 

A heaviness weighs down Goro's tongue, as substantial as a silver coin.

Goro can't feign stupidity. Can't pretend he doesn't recognize a certain something in Akira's look—something Goro is too cowardly to reach back for, and speak of, releasing it into the air—

Why does Akira want him?

Akechi Goro, with his cheap halfpenny smiles. Akechi Goro, with his flimsy antimony heart, not half so steadfast or noble as that of the prince he once assumed as his title—so what then?

Goro doesn't understand what kindness is, not in the way that Akira understands it. Not in the way Akira shows it. He's never been able to lean on it—it's fickle, like fishline for a tightrope act, something too fragile and breakable to save you. Hospitality, a hearth, a heart—what does Goro know of these?

He thinks of trains. Collisions. 

Two bodies, velocity and kinetic energy. Friction. A cue striking a ball, an ivory key striking piano wires, wheels against steel, speeding faster and ever-faster.

Two bodies. Two bodies. 

"What are you thinking?" Goro says, not sure if he's speaking more to Akira or himself.

"Nothing," Akira says, his lashes sweeping down once before they lift up again. "Tonight was nice. I like spending time with you." A shrug of his shoulders, and his voice dips lower, softens conspiratorially, as if sharing a secret. "Is that so strange?"

A tipping point. The wavering, the pull, the fall. 

Goro could push Akira before the tracks, could hear the wind howl with the drop. Could yank Akira back from the edge, holding him tightly.  
  
Could simply turn right now, and tug on the collar of Akira's coat, Goro's thumb on the pulse beneath Akira's jaw, pulling in Akira closer to—to— 

Goro is selfish—and his presence would tip Akira into selfishness too.

 _I will break you_ , he thinks.  
  
Ragged despair gnaws at the edges of that thought, but he pushes it back.

It's nothing but a passing pain—he'll simply lock it away inside his throat like the hundreds of other words he's never said to Akira.

"Goro?"

Goro should answer him. 

Should tell him what Goro had suspected when he had first awoken here—no. _No._

He shouldn't.

He doesn't have anything else to give to Akira, but he can at least refrain from taking too much from him—even as Goro's steps inescapably, inexorably draw near to him, circling towards him over and over again.

Only one track is left now, and if all it requires is for Goro to remain in its path to shatter this farce of a world—to let Akira and his friends go back—well. The choice is easier now, isn't it? 

"You _are_ strange," is all Goro says. "Don't get too distracted from what we need to do now."

Akira's glance slides back to Goro's face, his look so focused, it's almost as if he's mapping Goro's expression to his mind's eye. "I remember it very well. You're not the only one who can keep promises, you know?" 

_As long as you remember something, doesn't that mean it exists?_

"Good," Goro says.

He sits next to Akira, elbows, thighs, knees touching, listening to the train beneath them move forward, and waits for the journey's end to part them.

**Author's Note:**

> +goro briefly quotes from Fukuzawa Yukichi in one scene  
> +the sartre quote is a reference to the novel _Nausea_  
>  +how many variations of an ethics metaphor can we use until it wears out its welcome?  
> +is this reallyyy fluff? or is it just fluff-adjacent? goro doesn't know! i don't know either!!  
> +[the magnitude of the velocity difference just before impact in a collision is called the closing speed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision)
> 
> you can also find me here if you want more shuake crying hours  
> [tumblr](https://qserasera.tumblr.com/) || [twitter](https://twitter.com/mallory_madder)


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